The fourth amendment, protection against unlawful search and seizure, was put into the constitution as a direct consequence of the very laws that civil forfeiture was based upon. That makes me sad. How can we, as a society, function in which we've incentivized our own police force to take property from our citizens without proof of a crime? It just doesn't make sense.
This is a dangerous precedent that obviously does not have enough oversight if they are willing to take $2,500 moving money that a son received from his father.
Talk about Orwellian double-speak: they call it "asset forfeiture" and the "Equitable Sharing Program." It's theft and everybody knows it.
> "despite warnings from state and federal authorities that the information could violate privacy and constitutional protections."
It's illegal, pure and simple. No need to sugar coat.
> "Police can seize cash that they find if they have probable cause to suspect that it is related to criminal activity. The seizure happens through a civil action known as asset forfeiture. Police do not need to charge a person with a crime. The burden of proof is then on the driver to show that the cash is not related to a crime by a legal standard known as preponderance of the evidence."
Cops in the story act like the mere existence of a lot of cash is probably cause. This is the opposite of one of the major reasons for law and law enforcement: to protect people's property. We have police so we can feel secure with our property, not to take it so we have to fight back for it.
“Those laws were meant to take a guy out for selling $1 million in cocaine or who was trying to launder large amounts of money,” said Mark Overton, the police chief in Bal Harbour, Fla., who once oversaw a federal drug task force in South Florida. “It was never meant for a street cop to take a few thousand dollars from a driver by the side of the road.”
I love watching how systems of people operate. Fascinating stuff.
Over and over, what I see in U.S. history is somebody who has a real problem that needs solved -- perhaps a gnat is flying around the house. The problem looks really sexy on TV. Politicians can thump the table and get lots of votes.
Then these politicians get elected and suddenly we're building industrial flame-throwers to get rid of gnats. "But it's only for the gnats!" they say. And it is -- for about 20 years. Then it slowly becomes a tool like any other.
Part 3 of this story is the most interesting. It's where the rest of us figure out how we've gotten screwed and start clamoring to have something done about it. But nothing happens.
Democracy's bug? That every generation feels like it is special, and that the problems it is having are special. So they "have" to start heavily mucking around with the system. Most every time, these fixes work -- until they don't. Then we're stuck with them forever.
Reading through these comments, I see quite a bit of ignorance. A lot along the lines of, "Why would you ever carry cash!?" Which fortunately a lot of cogent comment have successfully answered. Another is, "Why would you carry that much cash it's so RISKY?"
As someone whose had to carry around five figure sums around quite a bit in the past because of my profession (hint: it rhymes with "rambling") my far and away, it's not even close, fear is having the money taken by cops from an illegal search. This fear is justified because I've never been mugged or robbed and no one I know who was in the same line of work has either. But I know MANY people who have had funds seized by cops. ESPECIALLY in the south. Actually the horror stories I personally know about have happened only in the south.
Usually it's the cop seeing an out of state license. Pull you over, lies and says you were "swerving" or refuses to give you a reason. Then forces you out of the car, takes the money and sayonara.
Theft under the guise of, "oh this must be drug money". I think the article mentions the average amount taken is something like ~$8k. That's 8-10months of legal fees.
AND IF YOU DON'T LIVE where they took it, you'd have to GO THERE to go to court.
That's why in places like Missouri they love pulling over out of state licenses because they know if you live in California you aren't going to be coming back to contest their shenanigans.
I live in Reno, so with Burning Man recently I saw a disproportionate number of traffic stops off the freeway. The interesting thing about Burning Man, however, is that all vehicles are marked by the tell-tale dust from the Playa. Cops can easily identify which cars should be pulled over. I've seen cops rooting around in dust marked cars while concerned Burners watch.
I can't stress enough how important it is to know your rights [1]. Never, ever consent to a search. Never, ever "talk" to police (insofar as to assert your rights). They are not your friends. You are being pulled over because you are being accused of a crime. And all too often they will use word games and intimidation to get you to "cooperate" (forfeit your fifth amendment rights).
Even though Burners might be less likely to have large sums of money in their car (cash money is forbidden in trading at Burning Man), suspicion of drugs is a likely story for a stop and seizure.
I can back this person up. I lived off Pyramid Highway (Nevada 445), a main route taken to Burning Man, and I would see cars pulled over in front of my house by the police all the time after the event. The traffic stops usually lasted 30 or so minutes and almost like clockwork they were searched.
Even before I was more politically minded, these stops struck me as odd.
Where is the Burning Man Auto Wash service? With powerful vacuums for that special "no residual seeds" detailing? Or at least the Burning Man Avoid The Man infoproduct? It must not be common knowledge if so many cars hit the highway with dust.
The local governments invariable claim it's not about the money; it's about safety or some such. I want an amendment that puts all the money from fines, seizures, etc. to the national debt. That's the closest thing to a black hole for money I can think of. Watch them scream then. Not about the money, my ass.
'The attention prompted Congress to reform federal seizure laws in 2000, allowing owners to be reimbursed for their legal fees after successful lawsuits. But a key reform was cut. It would have removed what some lawmakers called the “perverse incentive” to target cash — the sharing of money between the feds and locals. It died after police and Justice waged a “voracious lobbying” campaign, according to former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
“We didn’t have the votes,” said Frank, who is still an ardent critic of asset forfeiture. “There is this terrible unfairness. It is about as fundamental a denial of their constitutional rights as I can think of.”'
How would you distinguish seizure of property with the false justification of probable cause, from legitimate seizure of evidence with legitimate probable cause?
I assume you are not advocating that police cannot collect evidence until after a crime is proven in court.
While a noble thought, I doubt the ultimate implementation would be amenable to a free society. I fear this would encourage the federal government to step up efforts to seize money. Sure, local authorities would forward the money, only to receive kickbacks from the feds. How that would actually impact the national debt is anyone's guess.
I think you're underestimating the difficulty with which someone in the government can just transfer funds. And two overestimating the incentives for anyone in the federal government to reduce the debt. I would be more interested to hear exactly who has an incentive to reduce the debt in the federal government and the power to transfer money to local police departments.
'“9/11 caused a lot of officers to realize they should be out there looking for those kind of people,” said David Frye, a part-time Nebraska county deputy sheriff who serves as chief instructor at Desert Snow and was operations director of Black Asphalt. “When money is taken from an organization, it hurts them more than when they lose the drugs.”'
Wait, what? I was unaware that 9/11 was perpetrated by drug traffickers.
Seems like the 9/11 rhetoric is slowly but surely transforming into the war on drugs rhetoric. "We passed laws for terrorists...no terrorists, so I guess we should use them on drug dealers then!"
Actually, many of the "anti-terror" laws have included in them drug crimes, too, and that's what the vast majority of National Security Letters are used for, too.
Devil's advocate: I think he meant that the attackers moved money for their operation via large quantities of physical cash (not sure if that's true), and seizing cash is vital for disrupting such organizations.
"A lot of money laundering operations is related to terrorist financing."
Really? Aren't most terrorist/guerrilla groups proxies for nation states? Do you seriously think cops have any chance of interdicting that kind of backing?
Because it's brain mush, and because it's old enough to be plainly seen as such by most people. Just like aluminum tubes, or telling (intellectual) children that "Al Kayda" is going to blow up their beloved shopping mall.
If OP wants to take the easy route by getting his world view from common propaganda (look at some of those other comments. "checks and balances" - that rich!), that's his right (assuming he's not just part of an organized program to stifle discussion). But that doesn't mean we should respect such drivel as legitimate discourse - mass media prevails precisely through sheer attrition.
While it may have lacked some of the facts in the past (though that is disputable), we have known for some time now that the drug market is demand driven, and this demand is extremely inelastic. Basic microeconomics says that inelastic demand can be consistently profitable. No matter what we do[1], somebody will step up to take that profit.
So we, as a country, had (and still have) a choice: who do we want managing this profitable market? Traditionally, we have chosen to fund violent gangs and cartels. We took what could have been a regulated - and taxed - market, and handed those profits to some of the worst people on the planet. So yes, there is funding going on of some bad people. That is by design - the prohibitionists even put "raising drug prices" as the purpose behind many of their attacks on the supply side ("dealers").
Yes, even in a legitimate market the regulations can fail and there are always loopholes and other problems. When the alternative is to hand piles of cash to violent gangs, even small improvements are worthwhile improvement.
Really, the people who still insist on full prohibition - that is, the people that are choosing to keep sending cash to gangs - are engaging in one of the nastier type of magical thinking. They make the assumption that simply by banning something, demand will magically change. In that view - where nobody should want drugs because they are illegal - it would indeed seem like the people "selfishly ignore the law an buy drugs" are funding various "bad" organizations. You see the same kind of magical thinking in other areas, too, such as "pro-life" groups. I suspect this type of attitude is derived from a Just World Hypothesis[2].
[1] If we can't cut off the supply side of the equation in prisons, we can't do it anywhere.
Because even if it's true it doesn't justify the response. The answer to prohibition funneling money to mobsters is not to crack down on speakeasies, it's to legalize and regulate what people are going to do regardless so that the money goes to farmers and legitimate businesses rather than criminal enterprises.
Near the end, they talk about how police can use psychological pressure to keep someone at the side of the road, not telling them they can leave any time the initial traffic stop is over. They then make 'productive' use of that time.
Judging from the 5 or 6 cops I know personally (neighbors and what not), there's basically nothing you can do if they want something from you.
They will lie or provoke you into doing something, even worse, one of the cops I know had a story about how someone said, "no, you cannot search my vehicle." The cop then asked if he wanted to be arrested for resisting arrest, and the guy gave in because he has no idea what his rights really are. The cop who was telling me seemed pretty smug about it, tricking someone into searching his car...
The point being, it's very hard not to get yourself into a pickle of the police officer really wants you. Most officers have somewhere between 2 - 4 years of formal education, most of which is about how to trick people, not about law. If the police officer suspects you're at fault for anything (or even is just having a bad day and doesn't like your look) he will arrest you.
That being said, always say, "I'm not refusing, but you may not search my car (or persons)" and don't go with them unless you are arrested. Both require them to get a warrant, something they wont do unless they need to. If your pulled over and asked why, always say "no." (fifth amendment right and all).
Finally, always, always, always be super nice and professional. Act innocent and you wont make the officer angry.
Don't you Americans feel ashamed of your country? Your country is beginning to stink. In many respects it is worse than third world countries.
How is this different from some third world country where police stop cars to collect bribes from drivers?
Well I'll tell you. In America the whole administration, the judiciary, the legal profession, the government at federal,state and county level are in on it. It seems that it succeeds basically because it is too expensive to get justice through the courts, this means that the courts and legal profession are in on it too. In third world countries is just the police and their superiors who get the money, and it generally petty cash.
It looks like it is not terrorists who are going to destroy America after all. Your corrupt governments, banks, judiciary and law enforcement will do it on their own.
A justice system which only the rich can afford is not a justice system in principle or in practice.
The funny thing is that it has been going on for decades and it looks like the Washingon Post just noticed, as though they didn't know about it ages ago.
First off, you are using a TON of blaming statements (which are mostly ad hominem) and are using a trolling technique to attempt poll others for feelings. It's a nasty habit and your comments only serve to make someone angry. I believe you are aware of your intent and only use it to illicit fear.
We still have enough liberty here that this article can run in the newspaper freely. That is evidence enough America is far from stinky. Do we have unfair levers of power here? Yes. Are we attempting to determine how the levers got into a few people's control? Yes. Will we figure out how to stop them and keep it from happening again? You bet we will.
And none of that will come to pass because of your crappy comments. It'll happen because we are Americans and aren't going to allow our liberties to being eroded by a bunch of fear mongering asshats. And THAT, my friends, is a blaming statement.
Eh, their post was their opinion, and they've got some decent points. Your accusation of ad hominem is misapplied--go look it up.
The observation was made that the real damage to the US would come from within and not without. This seems trivially easy to "prove" if you keep up with the news and history.
The observation was made that broad swathes of government and private practice were in league to perpetuate these issues. Such behavior is expected because of the mechanism of action at work: the rot and the power is in the legislative and judicial systems, so of course those folks will be acting in concert.
The observation was made that in other "corrupt" countries officers routinely relieve travelers of excess pecuniary baggage, which appears to also be the case in some parts of the US.
These are not ad hominem propositions, nor were they presented as such.
This is a false statement. "Your country is beginning to stink." is a blaming statement that attempts to lay out pre-support of the opinion "In many respects it is worse than third world countries". However, in the subsequent context in which it is used the statement is presented as a logical conclusion or fact. It is then followed up with another blaming statement meant to seal the 'logic' of the opinion, "It looks like it is not terrorists who are going to destroy America after all. Your corrupt governments, banks, judiciary and law enforcement will do it on their own."
There is no proof that America will be destroyed by corruption inside government, banks or the judicial system. There are observations that we are threatened by some individual's actions, but there are also observations we are doing something about it. The claims we will be 'destroyed' because we are 'corrupt as a third world country' are simply false. There is no evidence this will occur and it is pure conjecture.
While I agree with you it probably started as an opinion the comment, in general, their comments consititued an irrelevant conclusion. Irrelevant because it was full of blaming opinion from someone outside those being blamed, and conclusion because it was presented as fact. As it turns out, irrelevant conclusions fall into a broad of set of relevance fallacies, which themselves are 'ad hominem' arguments. Look it up.
> we are Americans and aren't going to allow our liberties to being eroded by a bunch of fear mongering asshats
I can't count how many times I've heard this comment along the lines of "hurr durr this is Murica and no one is taking muh freedom away". No, your freedoms are already gone and it looks like you haven't woken up to it yet.
I think you don't really get my point. Many countries don't have any meaningful rights or rule of law of any kind. There are many countries whose citizens will not challenge the authorities in any form or manner, because the systems give them no redress against any abuse of power. Even if they are rich the legal systems don't exist. Witness Khordovsky and his problems with the Russian government.
In America these institutions exist, but the legislatures have turned them into revenue collecting bodies for the federal,state, local governments and the law enforcement bodies.
It is like law enforcement and the legal system have turned into feeding troughs for the whole band of officials involved in it.
If you are not rich enough to give your lawyer a fair share of what they steal from you, you are not getting it back. If you are rich enough they don't bother stealing from you because they know you have the power to get it back.
This sucks. Apparently police and prison officers unions and PACS or whatever their called fund political campaigns which result in preserved or even bigger budgets for law enforcement, then turn around and use the increased income to fund the politicians next time around, to keep the cycle going (except Detroit), which results in more borrowing by the government from which the banks also get their share, pauperising future generations even more.
I don't think you get mine about speaking for others and making blaming statements. You can't say what I get or what I don't get, nor can you form blaming opinions and then try to speak them as fact. This behavior itself is where problems start, not where they are ended. This has nothing to do with the topic at hand and everything to do with solid lines of communication between those that agree to disagree.
I hear you when you say we have problems. We do. Like other countries, we have certain traits that make up who we are as a culture. Part of our culture, at least historically, is firmly objecting to too much government control. Given the recent reaction to the NSA's overreach, I'd say we are moving forward on the issue. Unfortunately for the impatient, this can be painful. We're also know for dragging our feet and whining about change while it is occurring. We're not perfect, but we're trying.
Yea, it's not great anymore, but with the exception of France; it's still the better alternative. That Governor
who was caught taking money made me proud of our system. As to the whole Cop problem--I don't have any answers, except buy dash cams.(If you drive a vechicle). The more outrageous footage we have of these guys abusing their power the Better.
Yes, whatever you do, please don't come here on a visa. It's awful. Terrible. A horrible, nasty place. Run away, far, far away while you still can. You should never come here. Tell all your friends.
I like most of my neighbors, and I am proud of what our country aspires to. Alas, the rich and powerful are a huge lot of real assholes. So, yes, we're a bit overdue for another round to take them down a notch or two.
Once in a while, things do happen in the U.S. to piss off the assholes:
* abolished slavery
* gave women the right to vote
* changed tax structure to try to encourage more of a meritocracy (alas, largely rolled back)
* overturned prohibition (again, losing ground due to war on drugs leading to Al Capone 2.0)
(maybe only once every two generations or so, but there you go)
Alas, there's a list of screwups that could parallel the above list, but we're trying...
You're mostly correct in your descriptions of justice in the USA. However, as an USAian I don't feel ashamed, because I don't feel responsible. I just live here. I certainly would like the USA to suck less, but translating that into shame is something that just doesn't happen in my head.
I also don't blame people for the terrible places in which they live either. I don't blame anyone for any repressive regime in which they might live. It's not fair and it's unproductive. I feel my decision to not blame people for any repressive regime they might live under is important to reforming those regimes, and ultimately having sympathy for those regimes' targets.
I'm a well educated and skillful professional and can do my job from basically anywhere in the world. I wouldn't even vacation in the US. I am terrified of the legal framework I would subject myself to, especially as a citizen. I'm perfectly willing to work for clients in the US, but face to face meeting will take place OUTSIDE the US.
> They will lie or provoke you into doing something
I would love to see a law on the books that forbids law enforcement officers from lying to witnesses or the accused to extract evidence or confessions. After all, it's unlawful to lie to them; the playing field should be level on both ends.
I would imagine such a law would apply to cops who are representing themselves as cops. This would go a long way to establishing the police as a group of people that I, as a law abiding citizen, can trust.
And then you would likely serve jail time for assaulting an officer. This is the exact problem with the system as it currently works. There is a significant imbalance of power that allows police to go on power trips with no real way to stop them.
I think in practice the "fuck you, I know my rights" approach is the worst one. Just take 20 minutes to hide your cash properly and in a friendly voice say "sure officer, go ahead and search." He's not going to find it.
Absolutely you shouldn't be leaving the money out in the open, and should probably hide it. You should absolutely NEVER give consent to search your car. You have no idea what a person is capable of until it's too late. I'm not saying the cop will plant something, though it wouldn't be the first time, but you also have NO IDEA what might be in your car accidentally.
Here's some examples of people who accidentally carried drugs in their car, because the vehicles they purchased had been seized after drugs were found in them, then sold at government auction, except that the authorities hadn't actually managed to find all of the drugs.
If there is just the cop and you, how does giving consent or not matter? Assuming there are no recording devices it's his word against yours. The best course of action seems to not piss them off, because they sure seem like they have all the cards.
You've been watching too many political thrillers. These guys are just sniffing around for low hanging fruit. If you want to get into a one hour bout of flexing nuts with a cop where he gets suspicious and orders a K9 unit and ends up thoroughly tearing apart your car and bags and potentially planting something, knock yourself out. Do the whole citizen lawyer thing. If you want to be on your way with minimal hassle, just disarm the cop and let him be his lazy self. Let him do his cursory thirty second look around and be on your way. This is the reality and many cops will tell you so.
As for having dangerous mystery items in your car, if you don't regularly hang out with low lifes that seems ridiculously improbable. Drugs and weapons are not going to sneak into your vehicle or luggage. To have "no idea" what's in your car it would have to be cluttered with junk and you'd have to parade people through it on a regular basis, so uh, don't do that.
To detain you for an hour, he needs a "reasonable and articulable suspicion" that you're in some way involved in a crime, and that means more than just "He looked like a stoner."
"Fuck you" is not an appropriate response, but videotaping responses to respectful questions is: "Am I free to go?" "Am I being detained?" "On what grounds am I being detained?" "Can you please tell me the relevant statutes so I can look them up?"
Because situations like these are quite rare. Even if your best friend was on the receiving end of this tyranny, you still have all the food you can eat in your belly and one of the highest standards of living in history. Plus the whole system has emerged such that it appears that individuals are making free rational choices, so you have to squint very hard to see that they're ultimately being played by the house.
I've long thought that income taxes and the money printing press are a pretty juicy targets. If we could enable people to easily stop paying their "federal" taxes, they would do so out of pure self interest, even if they personally enjoyed viewing the war and oppression porn on their TV. Likewise if we could enable people to default on their unsecured debt consequence-free.
Then bitcoin happened - a perfect vaccine for the lethargic state. What could be better than a currency that looks anonymous at the start, yet will be so easy to control when the apparatus of government/finance finally catches up? And despite the burgeoning alt-coin scene, there can only ever be one reserve currency, and its properties will be the ones you can take as universal - interoperable coins merely create little enclaves that will have the screws repeatedly tightened on them. But even independent freedom-minded people don't bother actually examining the properties of the systems they enthusiastically adopt. So, there went that avenue.
These days, I have no fucking idea. Leaving and leading a peaceful life seems prudent, yet that requires consenting hard to whichever new government one explicitly chooses. And if you don't want to be in an effective satellite of USG, then China and Russia are really the only options. And really the only thing differentiating them from USG is a current lack of global power...
Because resistance is futile. The machinery of government explicitly favours authority and that very authority was given to them willingly by the voting - or non voting - masses. It is the authority that everyone, including the plundered, believe they must have in order to keep them safe. Resistance takes courage and a willingness to lose everything you care about, such as your prideful opinion, free time or an hour of your attention.
The sacrifice is too great for the overwhelming majority of the populace comfortable with what they have and a chronic aversion to all things unpleasant. I've lost count of how many people I've seen change the channel when news of war or police brutality come on.
When the effort needed to change government matches that of a retweet, we will see change.
Resistance is not futile. We are far bigger and stronger than they are. An organized and determined resistance could dismantle the police state.
But the vast majority of the population is uneducated, uninformed and unmotivated. They're unwilling to turn off TV and talk radio and participate in their community.
And the few who are educated, informed and motivated get discouraged when nobody joins them in their protests, when they're alone in speaking out.
Maybe it needs to get even worse before a critical mass of resistance will set aside their trivial distractions and organize themselves.
> But the vast majority of the population is uneducated, uninformed and unmotivated. They're unwilling to turn off TV and talk radio and participate in their community.
That was always the case in past centuries (more so) and still, people frequently rebelled against malevolent authorities.
Have we become too civilized to resist? Or are we just too concerned with our individual well-being to sacrifice some personal safety for a common cause?
I appreciate what you're saying, but that just goes to show how large the barrier is to entry in governance. I fear you may be right that it may need to get worse before that resistance gains momentum. Which saddens me even more as I don't want to see any more lives destroyed.
The non-voting gave no such authority. They decided that being able to choose whether the assholes had red or blue hats wasn't even worth ten minutes of their time, and opted to not take part in the farce.
On the other hand, the voting (even if they voted Libertarian/Paul) supported the election system itself, and signaled their agreement to be ruled by the inevitable outcome.
When the effort needed to change government matches that of a retweet, we're all screwed. People should take at least a little time to make a considered decision about where the government is headed.
Some things are dangerous when they become too easy. Like obtaining a driver's license, or purchasing a gun.
Policemen likely don't think of themselves as "going after their own people." They think of themselves as going after criminals, often times profiled based on race (e.g. the anecdote from the article about stopping a Mexican wearing a U of Wyoming hat).
And being a police officer probably conditions you pretty quickly to assume that everyone is a bad person. When you do deal with lots of criminals every day you start to assume the worst about everyone you come in contact with.
This will stop immediately as soon as they start going after white, wealthy people. As long as they stick to poor non-white people who can't afford a lawyer or simply don't have the legal knowledge to fight back, nothing will happen.
We've lost some historical context. Take a look at how the police operated 150 years ago. The corruption now pales to then. Not that it makes any of this right, but it's neither unprecidented and certainly not the worst it's ever been.
--------Can we solve part of this problem through a smartphone app? -----------------
Here are my initial thoughts on how it would work, feel free to comment on better ways to implement it / other features
1) If you get pulled over by a cop, you start up the smart phone app and place the phone in the windshield mount (the mount should have power so the phone battery doesn't die)
2) When the app starts, it immediately starts recording (or streaming) audio and video
3) The app quickly connects/matches you to a real lawyer versed in your state's laws
4) Your newly matched lawyer can listen in on the subsequent conversation between you and the police officer. Or alternatively, the lawyer could act as a buffer and do all the talking with the police officer.
Benefits of the app:
5) Since the police officer knows he's being recorded, he may act nicer and more appropriately.
6) If the cop does try to "play games" such as holding the person without arresting, then the lawyer can quickly "step in" and ask the cop if his client is free to leave or whether he is under arrest.
Problems that I'm not sure how to solve:
7) Maybe the cop will tell the driver to step out of the car and around to the back of the vehicle - with the motivation of getting out of earshot of the lawyer/smartphone app.
8) Looking through a cynical lens, this app may face scrutiny by cop unions opposed to it - in how to shut it down
It's a good idea, but it hinges entirely on streaming at least audio, as it hinges on getting real-time help of a lawyer. It also assumes that there are lots of lawyers out there sitting at a computer and willing to listen to police convos, and step in, for free.
Perhaps lawyers would want to be involved as a loss leader for new business? I don't know.
>Perhaps lawyers would want to be involved as a loss leader for new business? I don't know.
There are a bunch of business models. I mean, you could price it like insurance. I pay a monthly fee and you guarantee someone is there to get my ass out of a sling if required.
Heck, you could price it like insurance, too; charge me based on perceived risk, and raise my rates if I actually use it.
I mean, I carry liability insurance against civil suits... Maybe you could talk me into paying for similar insurance against criminal charges?
- Great idea about pricing it like insurance and charging based on perceived risk! I wonder if people that carry large amounts of cash around with them sometimes (i.e. restaurateurs) would want to use the app - and they could deduct the monthly fee as a business expense.
- Another market would be people who may feel like they get pulled over by the police more often than normal. In this use case, maybe the ACLU would be willing to pay for access to the data/statistics from the phone calls.
It would make a lot more sense to run it like a call center, where low cost personnel would monitor the routine calls and then escalate it to the lawyer on duty when it was obvious that there was a problem.
Regarding Illinois:
- From this article [1], it looks like Illinois used to have laws prevents audio recording, but the Illinois Supreme Court recently overturned those laws. The court ruled you're not only within your rights to record law enforcement, but also to record public officials and private citizens when they do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a loud argument on the street or yelling fans at an athletic event.
Regarding illegal in some states:
- For any state where it is illegal to record a police officer, the app could just relay the audio/video signal to the lawyer without recording. The important part is that the driver has representation and the lawyer can still witness what takes place.
I like to use cash, and I keep a tally sheet and receipts with me when I travel, along with any withdrawal slips pertaining to the money. I can prove to a penny where it came from, where it was spent, on what, and it will equate to what is left.
But I get the impression that's not enough. As soon as they see cash, it's theirs.
And the thing is, I have plenty more in the bank. So if I am stopped and any cash or items are seized, the first thing I'm going to do is call my attorney and go about my business until I have sued the jurisdiction, the officer(s), and anyone else connected to the seizure back into the stone age.
I retired young after a successful career. Lots of tattoos. Gold Rolex, long hair, under 50 - I am an unscrupulous officer's wet dream. But I am sober, intelligent and law abiding. I never break the law and my driving record is spotless because of it. Pull me over and you're hunting, because you didn't see me weave.
Bring it.
And for those of you who are ready to say, "F you - you're rich", or whatever - spare me. I am exactly the kind of citizen who will eventually bring this kind of thing to a halt. I can afford to take it the Supreme Court. And I will do so with a relentless determination.
The police to me are a threatening force. If I need them, I'll go ahead and call. Otherwise, mind your own business and we'll be fine. So far in 47 years I have never needed them. And I know to a certainty I don't need them violating my rights.
When you read the reports it becomes clear that they won't go after people like you. they go after people who either don't know their rights or simply cannot afford to fight back.
If you want to do something about this then help some of the people in this situation take their case to court.
It's been that way for a long time now. Just look at the giant freudian slip DOJ lawyers made during 'Jewel v. NSA' while trying to explain why the NSA should be able to retcon the public court transcript by claiming it was classified, ex post facto.
Apparently it was very important to keep various Snowden disclosures secret, because:
DISCLOSURES THAT WE ARE CONVINCED THAT HAVE
SERIOUSLY HARMED THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF
THIS COMPANY
(caps in original)
Company? Country? I'm going with "Freudian slip of the century"
People upset by this (as I am) may be interested in EndForfeiture.com, a very slick brochure-style site you can send to your friends.
The organization behind it is the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that has performed ample pro bono litigation against civil asset forfeiture abuse.
If you choose to donate to them (which I encourage), note that they do legal work in other areas that you may or may not agree with, so you should take a look at that first.
(Note: I am not affiliated with IJ, I just admire their work.)
If you think a person who wants to carry or transact a supposed worth of 10,000 EUR or 3,000 EUR or higher, without being tracked, is performing an action befitting of the word "criminal" (and often the harsh, cruel treatment that comes with this word) -- and if you think these actions warrant subjecting the entire society to search and seizure (and the dramatic consolidation of power that it grants) -- then, unfortunately, you don't see what the problem is.
You might not be bothered by it. But I implore you to look past your own comfort and respect that others are bothered -- to at least see the possible problems. I'll reduce the terms. Many people don't want their personal, consensual affairs tracked, limited, and dictated by a central authority. A central authority for sake of discussion is the entity that tends to strip people of their physical and psychological humanity by means of economic persecution, containing people in cages, subjecting people to various forms of isolation and torture, and killing people. Thus, in no uncertain terms, many people don't enjoy increasing the power (i.e. legal and otherwise) of that central authority. They especially don't like doing so, the more they see the system on which it operates as being oligarchical, abusive, and unethical.
How many times must it be repeated through history's political systems to understand that predicating laws upon [search and seizure] is a fast-track ticket to tyranny? The United States has been riding this road for a long time. See: Prohibition / Drug War. Do you see a problem with an economic incentive for subjecting people to searches? Do you see a problem with their labor/value stolen? Would you see a problem if it were a mafia setting terms (hell, they could even let you vote and call it democratic, wink-wink) and then pulling you over to intimidate you and take as they see fit -- or possibly worse? One of the biggest problems is when people don't see the problem.
Perhaps because most people don't readily have access to thousands of euro/dollars/etc, and thus see less problem with assuming anyone who does is up to no good.
Are you saying because you, shin_lao, doesn't prefer cash, that it's ok for the government to go around seizing cash from people who do prefer it? What of the seller only accepts cash? What if the buyer (someone other than you) prefers cash?
"this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" printed on every dollar(s) bill in circulation should settle the argument. Cash should always be an option. It's the law. If that law is invalid, how can I know that the law that says "don't pay for more than X in cash" is valid?
You said cash is neither convenient nor safe. I've paid with cash, and I find it convenient and safe. It's especially convenient when the seller only accepts cash, since a non-cash transaction would be impossible. I have no problem with France's law against cash (since I'm not a French resident). France also doesn't have freedom of the press, and I'm ok with that.
You said cash is neither convenient nor safe. I've paid with cash, and I find it convenient and safe.
If it's generally known that nobody carries large amounts of cash, I imagine it might make muggings a bit less common.
It's not so much you personally carrying lots of cash that's safe or unsafe, it's what fraction of the population carries lots of cash that makes things safe or unsafe.
The statements of the law in France seem like useful information; those aren't what the downvotes come from. The statement that "I don't see what the problem is." invites the downvotes.
Want to help? I went to http://whoismyrepresentative.com/ and entered my ZIP code. It took me to the page of my representative and senators. I submitted a link to the article and a message indicating that I would like to see the law supporting Stop and Seize repealed. I said some other stuff about being a gainfully employed citizen ashamed to call myself American due to the encroachment on our rights.
If this makes you sick, tell your congresspeople, and tell your friends to do the same. We do not get to have the rights we want without declaring that we want them.
All that will happen from this is that criminals will find ways to move money without cash (like bitcoins, etc) and the only people caught will be non-criminals or really stupid criminals. Everything evolves in reaction to pressures.
There was a case a while back where someone was convicted of being an accessory to a serious crime and jailed for an extended period because they lent their car to the perp, who - inexplicably - didn't mention it was going to be used for criminal activity.
The prosecutor argued 'No car, no crime', and the jury bought it.
To me that's like arguing 'No clothes, no crime' and jailing the board of Walmart for selling underwear. Or 'No food, no crime' and jailing the staff of a nearby diner.
> “Those laws were meant to take a guy out for selling $1 million in cocaine or who was trying to launder large amounts of money,” said Mark Overton, the police chief in Bal Harbour, Fla., who once oversaw a federal drug task force in South Florida.
If that was your intention then why on earth did you allow seizures from civilians? Seems to me that the best way to seize a million dollars from a cocaine dealer is to arrest him if you have reasonable suspicion, and if he's convicted, seize the money.
But of course, it's a lot easier to just take his money without being able to prove your suspicion. :\
* Asset forfeiture abuses by police have been going on for at least a generation. Here's an excerpt from House Judiciary testimony by an African American gardener who dared to carry $9K in cash in 1991 to buy plants at a nursery. He had it all (surprise!) confiscated by cops. The fact that it's been 23 years and the abuses are worse, not better, is telling. https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/statement-rep-he...
And here's a note I sent to Politech on the topic back in 1998:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-00023.html
* Contrary to some claims in this thread, there are reasons to transport significant sums of $10K+ in cash. Contractors, tree removal companies, landscape installers, grading/excavation firms, etc. can charge that much for work and, I'm told by my SF peninsula neighbors who have had work done, often offer cash discounts. (Which means, of course, both the homeowner and the contractor would be transporting large cash amounts sequentially.)
* I suspect that governments would, to a first approximation, prefer that their own citizens engage only in traceable, trackable, non-anonymous electronic transactions with closely regulated financial firms. This is already happening: cash now represents only 14% of dollar payments by value. Though my favorite example in this area is this proposal that bubbled up inside the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond; I wrote about it for Wired in 1999:
http://archive.wired.com/politics/law/news/1999/10/32121
"The magnetic strip could visibly record when a bill was last withdrawn from the banking system. A carry tax could be deducted from each bill upon deposit according to how long the bill was in circulation... Systems would have to be put in place at banks and automatic teller machines to read bills, assess the carry tax, and stamp the bills 'current...'"
This is by no means a justification for these seizures, but in reading this I can't help but wonder in what legitimate situations one would actually need to carry such large amounts of cash. Would a money-order or bank-certified check not do the job, or would those be seizable by the police as well?
Again, I say this more in a "how can I avoid this type of situation" sense, rather than implying that there was any wrong-doing on the part of the cash carriers.
I could throw out a few situations that have happened to me in the last few months:
- People that gave me cash in an envelope at my wedding, as it's cheaper than getting a money order/bank check if you don't write a regular check that takes forever to clear with large amounts. Don't want to think about how much I was carting back home that night. Hell, replace wedding with any situation - I have had to cart around a fair amount of money in general between my parents and their friends that are in a war with each other over gifts/paying for things, sometimes unknowingly when people stuff an envelope in my purse/bag or somewhere in my car and then only tell me after the fact. (If you're Asian, you know what I'm talking about.)
- Me hauling ~$5k to go straight from my restaurant and bank across the street, to one of a couple of restaurant supply stores that offer a cash discount because they don't want to deal with fraud and fees (and nor do I). It's rare I buy a piece of equipment with cash, but sometimes it's urgent so I go in person instead of ordering it online.
- The other day, dad was in the hospital and they wanted payment asap. I had been in a rush and I didn't have my CCs on me only like $60 in cash and an ID, so I went to my restaurant and brought the payment over that was otherwise going to be deposited in the bank later that day.
Some of this is cultural though - older or still very Asian folks that like the feel of cold, hard cash. They're a lot of small business owners with businesses that deal with a lot of cash on a regular basis too. So you know what some of the deal is ;)
Having dealt with $10k+ checks in general though, I almost want to just deal with cash but it's just too easy to lose. I deposited a ~$50k bank check in my business account that took _three weeks_ to clear. As in, fully guaranteed by the bank funds. When they're not and they're just personal checks, I've occasionally gotten a stinkeye from bank tellers, nevermind the pain of going to the bank to deposit a check in the 5 figures in the first place (typically can't ATM or app deposit) - even though that's not uncommon for me (not even 1mo of contracting, or my parents' gift to me for my wedding).
Almost everything involving a bank costs money. Checking accounts have both monthly fees and overdraft fees. Check books cost money. If you're well-off, as virtually all HN commenters are, the fees aren't a big deal or they're waived entirely. If you're poor, as virtually all the victims of roadside asset forfeiture are, the fees are significant so you just don't use banks. That means you end up having to carry large amounts of cash.
Now, you prefixed your comment with "This is by no means a justification" so this isn't directed at you, but one of the reasons the criminal justice system is so messed up is because people in a position of power (judges, prosecutors, but also voters) don't realize what it's like to be poor, so when a poor person does something that they wouldn't do (like carrying large sums of cash), they assume it's either suspicious, or if not suspicious, foolish, so the poor person deserves what he/she gets. A bit of empathy could go a long way here.
I can see how one might come to the assumption that the victims here are "poor", and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are, but I didn't see any suggestion of that in the article. I would presume that the less well-off victims did not have the legal resources (as these men did) to challenge the police's actions.
Of the three victims that were profiled, 2 were business owners, all 3 (presumably) owned vehicles, and were carrying anywhere from $18k to $75. Now, that doesn't mean they were well off, but it's also not sounding like most people's definition of poverty. Surely business owners have to deal with the costs of bank transactions.
Again, I'm not trying to blame the victims here. I think they were wronged and that the police are overstepping their mandate. I do empathize with what happened to them. However, I've had enough experiences in life to form the belief that while at the same time you should stand up and speak against wrongdoings like this, you should also protect yourself as best you can, knowing that these things, sadly, will happen. That's where my original question originated from. For example, I don't keep valuables in my car, because while I know that the thieves who break into my car once or twice a year are completely in the wrong, I know I am putting myself at risk if I leave stuff in there for them to take. I'm not going to leave stuff in the car out of principle, because it's my "right".
Don't read too much into the fact that they own restaurants. They are probably very small businesses and don't make much money. They're likely sole proprietorships or general partnerships so they aren't a separate legal entity and might not even have bank accounts, so their owners would not be used to dealing with bank transactions. You can actually be much poorer owning a business than having a steady job. And owning a car is a virtual necessity in America, so even the poor have them. Don't confuse poor with destitute.
One should be able to proffer advice without it being victim-blaming, but I do question the utility of offering advice which is difficult for the intended recipient to follow. Also remember we don't hear about the cases where cops don't seize cash, so the risk of carrying cash might be more tolerable than giving up some of your hard-earned money to banks.
Also, many restaurant owners are immigrants. I speak passable German and fluent Latvian and it would still be a bear to slog through multi-page legal documents in either of those languages, and I could easily make a mistake for not knowing local norms.
I took $9500 in internship savings in cash across the border with Canada a few years ago. I wanted to put the USD directly into my RRSP (Canadian 401K) and a wire transfer would have cost $40 and international deposit of a bank draft would have taken 3 weeks. I would have taken more but >$10k requires a customs declaration which I didn't want to deal with.
Money orders typically have limits of a few hundred dollars, far under $18k (the example in the article). Bank-certified checks suffer from forgery problems and take 1-3 days to clear at my local bank. Both of these cost money, sometimes significant amounts of money. For instance the money order fee on $18k, assuming you structured the transaction to get around the limit, would come out to ~$150 at the place I last used (not to mention the UX is terrible and time-consuming).
The state literally prints currency to facilitate commerce, so it is beyond unjust to then seize it from people who use it to conduct commerce regardless of whether there exist other means of doing so.
I sold a car to someone on craigslist for a few thousand dollars. The person who bought it paid in cash, still in a bank envelope. This transaction was not criminal, and it's exceedingly unlikely that the money had illicit origins. I promptly deposited the cash into a checking account. The amount certainly prompted a Suspicious Activity Report to FinCEN, which I made no attempt to avoid, as doing so would have indeed been criminal.
Cash is just by far the most trustworthy form of payment to accept from strangers (other than perhaps cryptocurrency or physically going to the bank with them), which is why craigslist warns against money orders or checks of any kind.
It would have been entirely and unambiguously unjust if the state had seized that money from either me or the person I legally sold my car to.
Why must the people opposing asset forfeiture come up with a "legitimate situation"? What if I simply want to carry a bunch of cash unrelated to any criminal activity?
You might as well say something like "I don't see why anyone would legitimately like death metal music." It's fine to not understand or share people's opinions and preferences, but it's ridiculous to support them being robbed simply because their preferences differ from yours.
Bob owns a shop. Cash takings are put in a safe each night and taken to the bank at the end of the week.
Fatimah is an observant Muslim and thus has restricted choice of bank accounts. Her business is also a cash business but she keeps most of the cash in a safe because getting to a branch of a bank that offers an account that is compatible with her faith is a long drive. Thus she tends to have sizable amounts of cash when she actually goes to the bank.
Chris has been saving to buy a car. Chris has a problem controlling his spending with credit and debit cards, so he hands cash to his father who stuffs it in an envelope under a matress. While it's not particularly rational it works for Chris who now has $7,500 to buy a vehicle.
There's a bit of inconsistancy going on: "all criminals use cash, thus everyone who uses cash is a criminal". That's the kind of thinking that children are taught to be careful of and it's a bit scary to see it written into law.
I share your sentiments. I'm more ambivalent about this process than I should be, as an admirer of the checks and balances in our constitution.
I would suspect that the vast majority of such hauls is drug money laundering related. "Normal" folks would be scared of losing such cash or having it stolen. I know I would be petrified at the thought.
However, there are probably a few folks who don't use banks (don't trust 'em or don't use 'em just because) and this is how they buy a house or buy a car or go from one state to another with their possessions.
Now, here's where my ambivalence comes from: do we let the money laundering go because a few of these are false positives? Or do we accept the false positives because it serves the greater good because it catches or causes attrition for money launderers?
I think electronic or check transfers are a rational solution to the problem at hand and so folks should use that.
But I'm still ambivalent. Constitution. Checks and balances.
Carrying that amount of cash is a high-risk venture regardless of whether these questionable seizures are happening or not (e.g. the threat of theft). The other methods mentioned may cost a bit, but that cost goes towards lowering the risk of the transaction. For someone carrying 5-figures worth of cash, how can those costs be prohibitively expensive?
> For someone carrying 5-figures worth of cash, how can those costs be prohibitively expensive?
When it's all you have, and already allocated to an expense that's necessary in one way or another. The fact that cash is in paper form, and not electronic form doesn't imply that it's from the discretionary part of your budget.
Also, there is the phenomenon of people with low incomes opting out of the banking system for various reasons including distrust of it.
2. the receiving party is both wealthy and trusting enough to buffer the entire transaction
Banks operate on a principle of eventual consistency that lets transactions and accounts dangle in limbo for days to weeks. Delays cost money: lost opportunities, missed deadlines, rent. Is it really so hard to believe that the expected cost of a weeklong delay (which happen all the time) would be more than the expected cost of theft (which is rare in comparison)?
Don't you think it's a bit strange that the biggest risk to your wad of $100 bills, as you drive down the highway, is not criminal robbers, but the police?
However, protecting yourself against something like this doesn't have to mean that you think it's a reasonable and justified action. As I explained earlier, for the same reason I generally wouldn't carry this much cash around, I don't leave valuable items inside my locked car, even though it is illegal and unjust for someone to break into it and steal them.
Like, really--what is the actual harm of letting the laundering occur? What is the root cause of that harm? Why is it a large and profitable industry at all (hint: it's not because of the drugs)?
Then look at it on the other side:
What is the harm done to a citizen or person who isn't conducting illegal business but who is suddenly losing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars out of nowhere? What does that do to them, and can they recover? What is the chance of things escalating during such a seizure and in turn causing them to be punished by the state further (consider any number of padding charges a cop/DA might decide to hit them with)?
Lastly, consider the precedent being enforced: you now have your justice system interfering with legal common commerce. Where does that stop? What do we have to gain? What happens if anonymous financial transactions are disallowed?
Answer these questions, and I think you'll begin to see why this is so troubling.
For certain large types of crime such as fraud of stolen creditcard data and others, the only bottleneck is the ability to launder the stolen money - with the current limitations, it generally requires recruiting (scamming) 'mules' to do your laundering for you in limited volumes.
That means, if tomorrow suddenly it'd be possible to launder x% more funds with the same effort, then immediately that fraud will grow by that same x%.
Also, for certain types of crime 'following the money' is pretty much the only way how they get solved. Anti money laundering laws have valid uses - of course, they definitely don't need to prescribe seizing legally obtained cash.
And yet it seems that the headlines are dominated by "The Terrorists" and "The Evil Drugs Lords", not "Surprisingly Annoying Credit Card Fraudsters".
Indeed, the very fact that credit card fraud is effective is more proof that the existing credit system needs upgrading and that cash-only is not an unreasonable way of handling these transactions.
> However, there are probably a few folks who don't use banks (don't trust 'em or don't use 'em just because) and this is how they buy a house or buy a car or go from one state to another with their possessions.
It may help to compare cash to bitcoin to help you imagine it. One of bitcoin's motivations is, "Why does the convenience of electronic transfer come bundled with central authority?"
If you can reduce middle-man risk, that's a good thing. Banks have lost reputation with the poor to the point that it's seen as less risky to transport sums in cash.
This story is so unbelievably biased and one-sided, it confirms my suspicions of the value of the Washington Post anymore.
Carrying $75K in cash around should raise anyone's suspicions as to the purpose, no matter what the carrier claims. Think about it. Why would YOU carry $75K in cash?
The obvious and well known reasons are, it's the most secure way to fund drug and terrorist cells without leaving a trail. The Post even acknowledges that!
"There is no question that state and federal forfeiture programs have crippled powerful drug-trafficking organizations, thwarted an assortment of criminals ... "
But not until they make their accusations and end the above sentence with:
"... and brought millions of dollars to financially stressed police departments."
Note that only a sixth of those seizures were ever challenged but the Post claims it's only because it's too expensive to do so. They do NOT question whether it's because it's drug or terrorist funding (and I will state that it is).
Just unbelievable what these formerly trustworthy newspapers are churning out nowadays.
Yeah biased. The police on the other hand are clearly entirely even handed, righteous and fair.
There's always a defender for the indefensible in forums supporting authoritarianism. You carry 75k in cash because:
"That's none of your damn business."
Really that's the reason right up until you have a warrant. Even then it may still be the reason and unless proof is offered it's yours and you keep it. Because Freedom.
It's very common amongst migrant communities who raise funds for business amongst family and friends for one. So that's like 90% of the USA within the last few generations. There are many other reasons, many of which you have never considered. And it still isn't your business or anybody else's right up until probable cause and a warrant. People take it seriously when it happens to them, I believe there was a war fought over that once.
Would you rather the Post biased against you or the courts. 10 months to get your money back, no charges and it costs you your business. You get your money back but not the time you spent, the legal fees, no mention of interest, or compensation and to finally get it you have to promise you won't sue. Yeah you enforce that as police because you know you're in the right, sure. If that were me having my property stolen I'd be saying the post didn't go in nearly hard enough on this criminal behaviour and spent too much time not acknowledging police officers can tell lies and you can't take anything claimed by a police officer as a fact just because he or she said it. Would the word biased cover the racial profile of those stopped? Or do you think that white people aren't involved in drug crime at all?
But you see here's the thing about your rights. They exist or they don't. If someone who "might look like a drug dealer" has no rights to unwarranted search and seizure, neither do you.
HSBC do drug money laundering and the people involved aren't prosecuted because it might result in HSBC losing their banking license. Seriously, that's the reason given. Drug money laundering at the big end goes through banks, there are other banks than HSBC involved. If you want to get warrants to do proper searches to fight drug crime that would be the place to start and devote all spare resources.
De-criminalization is a much better bet to start solving these immense problems.
We don't, generally, forbid things that are merely suspicious. You should be considered innocent unless proven guilty. This is a basic pre-requisite for a fair and open justice system.
What the Washington Post is talking about here is money taken from people who have not been convicted of anything. Money taken, in the first instance, without recourse to a court of law. Money taken, often, from people without the will or resources to have it overturned. Do not underestimate how powerless people feel in the face of overwhelming authority and how that powerlessness means that they fail to assert their rights. Even those that have the money returned are subject to interest and opportunity costs with returns often taking months.
Only one-sixth of seizures are challenged. This means that approximately $450m every year are taken from people who do have the means to appeal and fight back. Assuming that unreasonable (not the same thing as unsuccessful) appeals are balanced by those without the means to appeal, you are punishing innocent people by half a billion dollars in fines every year. That they may have used the money to buy drugs is not an excuse.
If a society is to have a fair and reasonable justice system, that system must err on the side of the innocent and not on the side of its enforcers. Otherwise it creates perverse incentives and encourages subjugation of the populace, fermenting resentment and a system that is not of the populace, but separate to it. That system is not stable and it is not a system that can act as a basis for progression. It is a cauldron for resentment, enmity and eventually revolution. It is not a good way to live.
There are two important points that your critique ignores
> Half of the seizures were below $8,800.
> Asset forfeiture is an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the government to take cash and property without pressing criminal charges and then requires the owners to prove their possessions were legally acquired.
The majority of seizures are nowhere near the $75K figure you're concerned about. I agree that large amounts of cash are suspicious, but these seizures seem to draw the line somewhere well below your hyperbolic example. Suspicious activity is not a priori illegal.
Second, when NO criminal charges are made, the seizures are no different than government thuggery. Carrying large amounts of cash is suspicious, and should therefore influence the question of probable cause, which could then be used to gather evidence for criminal charges, but that is not happening in many of these cases. That's a fundamental problem that needs to be reported more widely.
> Think about it. Why would YOU carry $75K in cash?
So the decision you've made (not to use cash) based on your personal preferences should bind the rest of the humans in this country as well. There are people from every corner of the world living in America, and you have decided that your world view and experience is the only valid one; their rights should be forfeit simply because they live their lives in a way that you yourself do not.
I have noticed this disturbing trend of pride coupled with ignorance among Americans. So many of us lack an understanding and appreciation for the core principles that our founding documents were based on. You've demonstrated a complete and utter lack of understanding of what a "right" actually is. Just because you have personally decided that your rights to due process and to be free from unreasonable seizures are unimportant does not mean that you can in any way make the same decision for anyone else. That's why we call them "rights" and not "privileges". Rights in this country are a property belonging to individual human beings, not collectively, and not to the state.
> Carrying $75K in cash around should raise anyone's suspicions as to the purpose, no matter what the carrier claims. Think about it. Why would YOU carry $75K in cash?
> The obvious and well known reasons are, it's the most secure way to fund drug and terrorist cells without leaving a trail. The Post even acknowledges that!
Not everyone has a bank account. Maybe they should but not everyone does. Just because some people carry cash due to illicit purposes does not mean _everyone_ carries large amounts of cash for that reason. Maybe they do not trust banks? Who cares? The point is, people are essentially being punished without a trial and without being proven guilty of a crime. The presumption of innocence seems very important to a lawful society – why should that presumption be forefitted simply because one chooses to carry large amounts of cash?
My boss carried £40k in cash around once a month for a number of years. It was people's pay on the way from the bank to the company. Imagine the consequences of siezing that.
In no way should anyone assume anything. That's a bad precedence to set.
And as for me, when I sold my house a few years ago, the buyer paid cash (a suitcase of 15,300 £20 notes). I had to take that to the bank and pay it in, which was suprisingly trouble-free. They just counted it and credited me right away.
That last paragraph is fascinating! How did you react to their request to pay cash? How did you count the money to ensure that it was all there - did you sit there and do it when they arrived, or employ someone or did you visit the bank together?
You weigh the cash with kitchen scales and check it's not paper blanks. That's about it. You have already exchanged contact details and IDs etc so it's all above board plus there is a solicitor present to hand over keys and act as immediate escrow. If there is a miscount of a few notes, ignore it and put it down to an accounting error.
Then you go down the bank, tell them you have a ton of cash to pay in, hand it over and it arrives in your account instantly. You have to provide ID and a receipt for the cash to say where it came from and that is it.
The scary bit was parking up in the local high street with a cash full of cash in your hand at a parking meter paying, then walking to the bank. When you have that sort of cash on you, you look like you have that sort of cash or a dead body in the case. Bank didn't even really think it was surprising.
Pretty depressingly boring.
I watched helicopters arriving in Hatton Garden from an office I worked in once and they were loaded with expensive diamonds and stuff with men in black suits - this was nothing even as remotely interesting or glamorous. The suitacase had no handcuff and was a bog standard samsonite one with dents all over it and the guy who bought it was a retired golf supplies salesperson.
A $1000 bundle of 20's is 50 bills. Usually they're wrapped up like that. That's only 15stacks. You'd only really have to count one of the stacks, if you didn't trust them.
In the US, at least, there are money counting machines in, well, the two bank branches I've been using for a decade. Different banks, one small, one medium of size, in "flyover country" (Joplin, MO). The tellers don't entirely trust them, but they're at minimum useful in getting a double check of amounts. And quite fast, > 10 bills/second.
To understand your argument, you're saying that people do not have "the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against searches and seizures" because you can't personally think of a reason to carry $75k in cash?
Carrying $75K in cash around is not illegal, but it soon will be if the powers to be have their way. What the anti-cash movement really wants is digital totalitarianism, that's the bigger picture in all this.
Look, I think most reasonable people would agree the Washington Post is pretty much a joke at this point.
However, I have toe vehemently disagree with your rationale. This line of thinking has to stop. Just because YOU can't think of any reason to carry "large" sums of money doesn't mean there IS no legitimate reason. Innocent until proven guilty, all that jazz.
"Think about it. Why would YOU, wear sagging jeans?"
Also, yes, it IS ridiculously expensive to challenge a seizure of money. This happens ALL OF THE TIME in the south, where cops do illegal searches, find money and say DRUG MONEY DRUG MONEY, and 99% of people are SCREWED because the system is stacked against them.
Tell me a legitimate reason to carry thousands of dollars of cash around. While some, here, will think of outlier reasons and point to a few "two thousand dollar" situations, the point of the whole thing is that there are a multitude of tens and hundreds of thousands and millions in cash that ARE stopped and picked up all the time for illegal reasons and the POST (and posters here) are ignoring that fact. (Except for the one line I show in my other post.)
Ignoring the other side of the story is what's going on here.
This was the standard argument in the USSR for everything. Who won cold war?
1) because I like cash, I like the feel of it, it's real money not bits.
2) Because I don't trust my banks.
3) because they charge fees to transfer the money same day I don't want to pay
4) because I don't like the government and I don't want them to have records of my business transactions if I can help it. I'm honest, I pay my tax but I don't want the IRS keeping records on where I buy my car and from who.
5) because I get a discount for paying in cash.
6) because I borrowed the money from family who do business in cash.
7) because I'm paying someone who prefers cash.
8) because I have to pay 30 different people and I don't have all their bank details.
9) because we've always done payroll in cash.
10) Because I'm taking the cash overseas to a country where US Dollars work and electronic bits don't.
There's 10. There are at least 100 more. And loads I haven't even thought of.
Using cash is a right, and you should feel bad.
Clearly you like breaking laws given your posts and should be arrested and have your property confiscated. What other reason could you have for your lack of respect for law? See how that goes? In soviet Russia, you're welcome.
>Tell me a legitimate reason to carry thousands of dollars of cash around.
A legitimate reason would be whatever reason I happen to choose, no different than if I choose to use a credit card, Bitcoin, or write a cheque. No one should have to defend their legal transactions to you or anyone.
More than half of all seizures are below $9000 - the amount of money you may use to buy a second-hand car. The amount of money that you may be using to pay for a group holiday. Hell, I brought a couple of thousand dollars in cash with me to the US on holiday a few years back.
You may be doing payroll for a small business that pays cash. You may have collected cash from a door-to-door sales job. Possibly you've withdrawn cash to put down as a deposit on an apartment or house. Maybe you're paying for a course for professional qualifications. Maybe you owe three month's back rent.
I'd reckon that all of these put together are more probable than funding a terrorist cell or setting up a drug deal. I'd certainly not give up my rights to do these things "just in case".
First, our system is supposed to be protective of the innocent. Carrying cash is very very far from being a violent crime or any other type of police emergency. There is never a case based on safety for confiscation.
Second, there are, for example, antique fairs where sellers are not going to take a check from random unknown buyers rom all over the country. Also, some people, notably some immigrants, of which there are a historically large number now, do not trust banks or bank instruments, or simply do not know which bank instruments would be trusted for which types of deals.
Last week, I switched banks. Rather than wiring the funds or spending money on an official check, I took out all my money in cash and brought it to the new bank. I could have been buying a kilo of coke, or funding terrorist activity, but I was just switching to a bank that's present in the state I moved to. I've done this twice before, and amazingly, I'm still not a criminal.
Are you asking for ONE specific legitimate reason? Say you don't trust banks, how do you purchase expensive items? Maybe you don't have a bank account for WHATEVER reason? Are you now a criminal because you don't have a bank account?
Or, are you really asking, what is the RATIO between what you'd deem "legitimate" reasons to carry money and what you'd deem "ill-legitimate"? What is the correct ratio? If we take 50% of the "bad guys" money, and 50% of innocent citizens is that too high? 60/40? 80/20? What is the correct ratio? How can you even know?
He was carrying $75,000 raised from relatives to buy a Chinese restaurant...
They took $18,000 that he said was meant to buy a used car.
...was stunned when police took $17,550 from him during a stop in 2012 for a minor traffic infraction...
The deputy found $75,195 in a suitcase in the back seat...
They were carrying $28,500 in church funds meant for the purchase of land...
No doubt there's injustice that needs to be addressed, but it's tough to have much sympathy for idiots. There's simply no logical reason to travel with that much cash. These people should feel lucky that the police, and not someone else, took their money.
Oh, I'm sorry I thought we were talking about the USA here. Just because, YOU, in the 5minutes it took you to post a knee-jerk reaction can't think of ANY reason to carry large sums of money doesn't mean it should be or IS illegal. It's not. This is a free country and there are many reasons one might want or need to carry cash.
This whole preposterous idea that, "Oh, you have lots of money on you MUST BE DRUG MONEY. Let's use draconian laws, and bring in the DEA so we can confiscate it all", is insane. And super prevalent in the south, where people getting stopped on the highway for speeding (or "durr durr you were swerving?") and getting their car illegally searched is all too common. Good luck getting that money back once it's inside the beast. It's a longggg road.
I used to carry tens of thousands of dollars in cash when I was a professional poker player because cash is the only accepted form of currency to buyin to a game or tournament. And getting large amounts of cash out of your bank when you need it can be really difficult, usually impossible.
I don't know why each of the people quoted in the article was carrying cash but I'm sure they had their reasons. And even if they were dumb reasons it doesn't matter. Making dumb decisions doesn't grant anyone, even the police force, the right to take what is not theirs. That is so basic and obvious that I wonder if you're just trolling.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_...